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Opinion: Offspring of the Celtic Tiger are new Irish diaspora

Opinion piece that appeared in the Gazette on March 14, 2013
March 15, 2013
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By Jane McGaughey


Assistant Professor Jane McGaughey

Over the next few days, things are going to get very green. St. Patrick’s Day has been celebrated by Irish men and women scattered around the globe — and even people of non-Irish descent, for that matter — for centuries. Montreal proudly lays claim to holding one of North America’s oldest continuous St. Patrick’s Day parade, beginning in 1824.

Many of the people who will be celebrating on Sunday have never actually set foot in Ireland, reflecting the “ownership” that the Irish diaspora (and anyone who wants to join it) feels toward the carnivalesque aspect of St. Patrick’s Day — as opposed to the more solemn holy day that was marked in Ireland until recently.

Since the death of the Irish economic boom that was dubbed the Celtic Tiger in 2008, and Ireland’s subsequent economic woes, those in the diaspora — in Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Argentina and elsewhere — will be joined in celebrating St. Patrick’s Day by a greater number of recent Irish immigrants than has been the case since the great Irish famine.

For more than a century after the potato blight in the mid-19th century, the saying went that growing up in Ireland meant preparing to leave it. The 20-year span of the Celtic Tiger boom seemed to promise a new economic age, with Ireland standing as Europe’s great financial success story. The crash of 2008 not only changed Ireland’s future, but forced the historical spectre of emigration to become a present reality for thousands of Irish citizens.

There have been countless news stories over the past four years documenting the rise in Irish immigration to Canada, Britain and Australia, three of the traditional countries to which the Irish have ventured in times of trial. Last year saw more than 87,000 people leave Ireland, the highest number since the time of the famine.

In the middle of the 19th century, the United States was the preferred destination for Irish migrants keen to avoid the British connection and pursue the American dream — even if it meant passing through Canada by way of Grosse Île first. Now there is fierce competition among the traditional countries of Irish emigration to see who can lure the greatest numbers of Irish to their shores.

Australia — once the destination of thousands of convicts — has become so popular with young Irish immigrants that the famous Bondi Beach near Sydney has been unofficially renamed “County Bondi.” Gone are the days when the Australian colonial government had to pay ship’s passage for Irish women heading to the Antipodes in order to populate the country. In 2012, more than 3,000 visas were granted to Irish workers, an increase of 68 per cent from 2011, according to the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

While Australia is no longer paying the Irish to settle there, Canada has revived the 19th-century technique of advertising directly to prospective immigrants before they have even left Ireland. The Canadian embassy has held job fairs in Dublin highlighting the employment opportunities across Canada. And the direct marketing in Ireland is working: the full Canadian quota of 6,350 newly ready work visas was snapped up by people in Ireland last month — in the space of 72 hours.

There is a new Irish diaspora emerging around the world. Keen to leave Ireland, these people are young, adventurous and in search of jobs and dreams — just like their predecessors who came here to build the Victoria Bridge, the Rideau and Lachine canals, the railway and, eventually, the nation itself.

The children of the Celtic Tiger — this streak of “cubs” — are here working hard, and are actively being encouraged by the federal government to stay. A hundred and sixty-five years ago, the Irish choice to emigrate came down to “death or Canada.” In 2013, the choices sound a bit more appealing: Bondi or The Plateau.

Jane McGaughey is an assistant professor of Irish diaspora studies at Concordia University’s School of Canadian Irish Studies.

Related links:
•    On the Gazette site
•    School of Irish Studies
•    Jane McGaughey's Profile



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